What's buzzin Hive!
Holy crap, I don't know what community this would even belong to so I will just post it independently. As I mentioned in my last post, we are on lockdown again as of Friday, Edmonton isn't having any of it anymore and various protests have erupted around our city for various covid related issues from small business owners to religious gatherings all the way to underground parties in Nail salons that later lead to weapons violation charges in a separate incident. I think just for personal observations as I continue my journey thru life, I feel like I need to record this for myself.
Lets start with one that has been going on for quite some time. A west Edmonton church, Grace Life Church decided to continue holding services thru out the pandemic and have been under scrutiny by AHS (Alberta Health Services ) and the popo with several visits during Sunday and holiday services. A few months ago, Pastor James Coats was arrested and taken into police custody and spent a few weeks in jail. Despite the pastor being locked up, a junior pastor took over and continued Sunday service. According to Covid-19 regulations, every non essential businesses was ordered to shutdown during phase one (lockdown with only essential businesses) and once moved to operate at 15% capacity for phase 2 re-opening of the province.
The church continued to operate at full capacity ignoring all health mandates including social distancing and face mask/covering when in public. The pastor was eventually released with one of 3 charges remaining and resumed his preaching's violating his bail conditions. Earlier this week, AHS and the police proceeded with intervening by locking up the church and building a fence around the church and parking lot to restrict access of the congregation. Some near-by residents were relived with the additional measures taken since we now have 1000 to 1500 new cases daily in a population of about 4 million fearing for the health of their communities. As the fence was erected, many others began to show up and protest the actions taken.
Today, it went WILD with several hundreds showing up to protest, others to counter-protest the protesters including a strong police presence to enforce restrictions. It is reported that no members of the church themselves attended. Crowds got a bit rough and stared to take down the fence despite police interference and lawyers are now getting involved to prevent the people from taking action. The fence was later reconstructed by police.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/rally-gracelife-closed-1.5983436
Several members from the adjacent Enoch Cree reserve have notice protesters parking on reserve land and have done some vandalism acts including vandalizing the chief's vehicle along with others. The community rallied together and built a blockade to the reserve to mitigate trespassers and are also protesting against the protesters to protect their rights and their land creating additional clashes. Many are still occupying reserve land meanwhile the Enoch community wants no part in any of the church drama pro or against. They just want people to stop trespassing and doing damage to their properties.
Last week or so, a different church decided to stand up for their rights and expel the police and AHS from the church entirely upon entry before they could take note of health measure violations in a video that went viral in our province. The pastor claims to be from Poland and has compared the situation with the early days of the Nazis and the Gestapo by entering the church with loaded guns where it is claimed that no weapons has place in the house of the lord and the policemen are not welcomed and considered trespassers until they come back with a warrant. They did eventually leave. Video inside the news link.
Several businesses were forced to close deemed as non- essential but this has taken a toll on business owners trying to survive and feed their families. Several restaurant owners continued to serve their patrons despite the health orders with full support of their surrounding communities helping them stay in business and fight with their continued patronage. The owner was charged with violations that were later dropped when the constitutionality of it was questioned in court. This happened during the last lockdown over the Christmas holidays until we entered phase 2 of re-opening.
https://globalnews.ca/news/7658844/ahs-drops-case-against-restaurant/
This has set a trend and now many businesses have been featured on the news expressing their right to conduct business and will ignore the mandated closures while maintaining other health safety measures like social distancing, masks and increased sanitizing procedures to maintain the health of their patrons regardless of police and AHS interference . Every day, the list of defiant business continues to grow, this being common especially with gyms, hair salons, bars and restaurants. Others have adapted by setting up outdoor eating spaces to continue to be open lawfully. For some reason you can still eat outside in a tent or on patios but no indoor patronage for any restaurants or bars .
For several week-ends in a row, there has been other anti-lockdown protests erupting in our downtown Legislative grounds intensifying today with several hundreds showing up to protest, as they continue each week-end, the crowds keep increasing. I'm not sure about counter-protesters as of yet but I'm sure it's just a matter of time until it turns into a shit show. On many occasions, legitimate protest in Edmonton have been infiltrated by Antifa turning any unrelated protest to appear as a racisms and white supremacy narrative calling themselves anti racism counter protesters...The issue, none of the original protests have anything to do with white supremacy or a racist agenda, it's all a show for the news and causing clashes between crowds.
Another topic of interest have been illegal makeshift night clubs. Several weeks ago a local Nail Salon, Khrome Lounge, was raided by police as several party goers tried to escape with an expected crowd of 200 in violation of health orders and no masks. Just last week, the owner of the nail salon was arrested with possession and discharging a weapon near an unrelated business.
Videos have surfaced of a crowded downtown club continuing to operate but when confronted by officials with the video evidence claimed it was a promotional video filmed before the pandemic. Meanwhile the video from inside the club have the same people wearing the same clothes exiting the club from law enforcement videos as they monitored the club's activity.
Some vacation resort recently laid-off staff were also observed on video having raging parties in third party restaurant and bar establishments that resulted in the eating establishments to be expelled from resorts and their lease immediately terminated.
In the recent days, there has been petitions and calls for our Premier and conservative party leader Jason Kenny to resign from his tenure after several mishandling of the pandemic along with his cabinet ignoring the very restrictions they are trying to impose on Albertans. Over the Christmas holidays, several personal staff and cabinet members including the one in charge of vaccination planning as vaccines were entering the province resulting in a delayed roll-out were caught taking out of country vacations in southern resorts like Hawaii, Mexico, Panama meanwhile telling all residents that family gatherings were banned and pre-recording videos to appear as following the restrictions set by them. Many were asked to resign, after much pressure from constituents they were relived of their cabinet positions but remained as MLA's as a way to back-pedal on their actions.
For the Easter long week-end, covid cases started to increase and the Premier and the Chief medical officer Deena Hinshaw abstained from addressing the Alberta population on the matter and abstaining from answering any questions or addressing concerns the members of the medical community had or health measures as the numbers of the so called more contagious variants overtook the original covid-19 detected a year ago and ICU is starting to get full again in the middle of a wage dispute and lay-offs in the medical field persist despite the pandemic. Other non covid related health concerns like cancer surgeries were deemed no essential and many health problems are being ignored with all the focus on covid.
Wow, this is just a few incidents that are starting to boil over in these parts of the country. Residents have enough of covid restrictions and want life to get back to normal with increased expenses due to the recent country wide carbon tax hikes and so many laid off workers, the cost of living has consistently increased. A new survey showed that over half of Canadians are struggling to pay their bills and would not be able to handle a $200 emergency. Bankruptcies has not significantly risen as of yet but as the pandemic payment deferrals and emergency benefits come to a close in June, the numbers are expected to rise significantly.
I have mostly stayed away from all the covid drama and just do my thing but it's starting to boil over, I'm not sure how I feel about the whole thing, it's a bit much to be honest. I'm not a people or crowd person to begin with so no social gatherings doesn't really change much for me but may be important for others. There has been a deterioration in mental health observed within the population with increased suicides especially in teens accompanied with an increase in drug use and overdoses relating to fentanyl.
Keeping the population healthy is important but these lockdowns also have many consequences far beyond what the so called "experts" take into consideration. Many Albertans are now starting to rise up and reject all of the measures. Can anyone blame them? They are being labeled conspiracy theorist or ubber right wing, are they tho? Or are they just fed up of government tyranny and overreach? Tired of the "do as I say not as do" public message they are sending with their own defiant actions of the very rules they put in place for the rest of the population.
What are your thoughts? Are the current lockdowns to much or do the people need to chill TFO? How about you, how is your government handling the situation. Are you on lockdown? If so do you agree or disagree with it and how has it impacted your life? Will you get the vaccine when it is offered to you or will you abstain or wait to see what happens for a little longer before you decide? Have you or a family member contracted the virus? Should the police focus more on actual crime rather than enforcing public health orders on churches and small business owners and their patrons? Lets talk about it.